In 1963, Frederick Merrill finds himself admitted to mental hospital outside Boston. While he is forced to submit to the hospital's strict regime, his wife struggles to hold her family together and to heal from the wounds of her husband's affliction. Nearly fifty years later, a writer in his twenties attempts to comprehend a moment in his family's history that casts a long shadow over his life. STORM AT THE DOOR blends memory and imagination, historical fact and compulsive storytelling, to explore how our love for each other and the stories we tell ourselves enable us to endure.